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   Non-TechBBY -Best Buy


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To: TH who wrote (957)12/6/2002 9:54:55 PM
From: Patric Von Swarengen
   of 980
 
my mistake, but that's for replying. That's seems to be the general feeling, 30-35 dollars.

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To: Patric Von Swarengen who wrote (958)12/8/2002 2:26:33 PM
From: Nutty Buddy
   of 980
 
Best Buy Unpreferred Customer Weekend:

These weekends are not what they used to be. Case in point:

"Free $25 Best Buy Gift Card Instantly* when you spend $150 or more on any combination of Music, Movies and Video Games"
then read the fine print "Excludes advertised items". Heck, most of their "advertised items" aren't even a reduced price and they get excluded?

"10% Off regularly priced Music and Movie titles, any combination. Limit 5.*"
10% off their regular prices isn't much of a deal, IMO.

"Take 10% off any single item* from these categories:"
One category is Computer Products which stipulates "DVD-RW drives, flash memory, printers $149 & up, etc, etc...." I assume that desktop systems, laptops, monitors, hard & CD-RW drives, video and sound cards, etc., etc...are not included since they are not stipulated.

I've never seen such a restrictive Preferred Customer Weekend at Best Buy. I didn't even bother to shop there, like I've done the past few months. Circuit City is now my hangout...can't believe I'm saying that!

Buddy

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To: TH who wrote (957)1/9/2003 1:37:20 AM
From: Patric Von Swarengen
   of 980
 
you still out there? What are your positions in BBY?

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To: Patric Von Swarengen who wrote (960)1/9/2003 10:09:58 AM
From: TH
   of 980
 
Patric,

I am still holding BBY. In the green now on my latest positions and I added a little bit more in the mid 23 range.

Provided the market does not tank, I'm thinking low 30s are possible in the near term.

Looking at the report today, BBY seems to have done a fine job in somewhat ugly retail conditions. I am interested in what the call at 11 today will address. Some comments from locals indicate that some of the dog Sam Goody's stores will be closed. Without knowing the details I would assume that is going to be a positive event for the stock price and the bottom line.

Good Luck

TH

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To: TH who wrote (961)3/6/2003 11:03:07 AM
From: TH
   of 980
 
Letting it go for a small profit.

Will buy it back in a few days maybe.

Good Luck

TH

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To: TH who wrote (962)8/23/2004 2:22:37 AM
From: Binx Bolling
   of 980
 
Attorney General Jim Petro Sues Best Buy For Unacceptable Business Practices
August 19 , 2004
Best Buy Complaint (as filed)
Sound Clip from Press Conference

COLUMBUS - Attorney General Jim Petro today filed suit against Minnesota-based Best Buy Co., Inc. (“Best Buy”), which operates retail outlets throughout Ohio and via the Internet. The lawsuit alleges that Best Buy engaged in a pattern of unfair and deceptive acts and practices. The Attorney General’s Office received hundreds of consumer complaints during the last few years with the highest concentration of complaints alleging, among other things, that Best Buy repackaged used goods and sold them as new, failed to honor rebates, failed to honor refund and exchange programs, and failed to honor extended service contracts.

“The sheer number of complaints coupled with the types of allegations my office received prompted us to file this lawsuit.” Petro said. “The primary objective of this lawsuit is to bring Best Buy into conformity with Ohio’s consumer protection laws and ensure that Best Buy’s Ohio customers receive the service they deserve.”

Additional Consumer Sales Practices Act violations alleged in the lawsuit include: failure to honor implied warranties of merchantability, substandard and/or inadequate customer service, and making false and misleading statements to consumers.

In the complaint, Petro asked the court to prohibit Best Buy from engaging in practices that violate the Consumer Sales Practices Act, and to order Best Buy to reimburse consumers who lost money or otherwise did not receive the full service they were promised. The complaint also asks that Best Buy pay a civil penalty of $25,000 for each violation of the Consumer Sales Practices Act.

Best Buy is a Minnesota corporation located at 7601 Penn Ave., Richfield, Minn.

For Additional Information on this Press Release:
CONTACT: Michelle Gatchell, Attorney General’s Office, at (614) 466-3840

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From: Jagfan4/4/2005 10:05:33 AM
   of 980
 
4/4/2005 BBY Best Buy Co., Inc. downgraded
Last: 50.45
-0.15 Jefferies & Co. Cites earnings outlook, weak same-store sales forecast for first quarter, falling prices of flat screen HDTVs, lower margin sales mix. Cuts price target to range of $48 to $53 from $60

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From: TimF6/2/2006 1:08:00 PM
   of 980
 
Couple's Supposedly Destroyed Hard Drive Purchased In Chicag

A year ago, Henry and Roma Gerbus took their computer to Best Buy in Springfield Township to have its hard drive replaced.

Henry Gerbus said Best Buy assured him the computer's old hard drive -- loaded with personal information -- would be destroyed.

"They said rest assured. They drill holes in it so it's useless," said Gerbus.

A few months ago, Gerbus got a phone call from a man in Chicago.

"He said, 'My name is Ed. I just bought your hard drive for $25 at a flea market in Chicago,'" said Gerbus. "I thought my world was coming down."

Gerbus and his wife had good reason to worry.

A total stranger had access to the couple's personal information, including
Social Security numbers, bank statements and investment records.

Through information listed on the hard drive, the man in Chicago was able to contact the couple.

"He said, 'Do you want me to wipe it clean or send it to you?' I told him to send it to me. I wanted it in my hands," said Gerbus.

Gerbus received the hard drive a few weeks later.

As a precaution, the couple alerted the major credit bureaus to protect their information...

news.yahoo.com

theinquirer.net

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From: TimF12/14/2006 9:17:43 PM
   of 980
 
Smashing The Clock
No schedules. No mandatory meetings. Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace

One afternoon last year, Chap Achen, who oversees online orders at Best Buy Co. (BBY ), shut down his computer, stood up from his desk, and announced that he was leaving for the day. It was around 2 p.m., and most of Achen's staff were slumped over their keyboards, deep in a post-lunch, LCD-lit trance. "See you tomorrow," said Achen. "I'm going to a matinee."

Under normal circumstances, an early-afternoon departure would have been totally un-Achen. After all, this was a 37-year-old corporate comer whose wife laughs in his face when he utters the words "work-life balance." But at Best Buy's Minneapolis headquarters, similar incidents of strangeness were breaking out all over the ultramodern campus. In employee relations, Steve Hance had suddenly started going hunting on workdays, a Remington 12-gauge in one hand, a Verizon LG (VZ ) in the other. In the retail training department, e-learning specialist Mark Wells was spending his days bombing around the country following rocker Dave Matthews. Single mother Kelly McDevitt, an online promotions manager, started leaving at 2:30 p.m. to pick up her 11-year-old son Calvin from school. Scott Jauman, a Six Sigma black belt, began spending a third of his time at his Northwoods cabin.

At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation's leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical--if risky--experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

Hence workers pulling into the company's amenity-packed headquarters at 2 p.m. aren't considered late. Nor are those pulling out at 2 p.m. seen as leaving early. There are no schedules. No mandatory meetings. No impression-management hustles. Work is no longer a place where you go, but something you do. It's O.K. to take conference calls while you hunt, collaborate from your lakeside cabin, or log on after dinner so you can spend the afternoon with your kid.

Best Buy did not invent the post-geographic office. Tech companies have been going bedouin for several years. At IBM (IBM ), 40% of the workforce has no official office; at AT&T, a third of managers are untethered. Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW ) calculates that it's saved $400 million over six years in real estate costs by allowing nearly half of all employees to work anywhere they want. And this trend seems to have legs. A recent Boston Consulting Group study found that 85% of executives expect a big rise in the number of unleashed workers over the next five years. In fact, at many companies the most innovative new product may be the structure of the workplace itself.

But arguably no big business has smashed the clock quite so resolutely as Best Buy. The official policy for this post-face-time, location-agnostic way of working is that people are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done. "This is like TiVo (TIVO ) for your work," says the program's co-founder, Jody Thompson. By the end of 2007, all 4,000 staffers working at corporate will be on ROWE. Starting in February, the new work environment will become an official part of Best Buy's recruiting pitch as well as its orientation for new hires. And the company plans to take its clockless campaign to its stores--a high-stakes challenge that no company has tried before in a retail environment.

Another thing about this experiment: It wasn't imposed from the top down. It began as a covert guerrilla action that spread virally and eventually became a revolution. So secret was the operation that Chief Executive Brad Anderson only learned the details two years after it began transforming his company. Such bottom-up, stealth innovation is exactly the kind of thing Anderson encourages. The Best Buy chief aims to keep innovating even when something is ostensibly working. "ROWE was an idea born and nurtured by a handful of passionate employees," he says. "It wasn't created as the result of some edict."

So bullish are Anderson and his team on the idea that they have formed a subsidiary called CultureRx, set up to help other companies go clockless. CultureRx expects to sign up at least one large client in the coming months.

The CEO may have bought in, but there has been plenty of opposition inside the company. Many execs wondered if the program was simply flextime in a prettier bottle. Others felt that working off-site would lead to longer hours and destroy forever the demarcation between work and personal time. Cynics thought it was all a PR stunt dreamed up by Machiavellian operatives in human resources. And as ROWE infected one department after the other, its supporters ran into old-guard saboteurs, who continue to plot an overthrow and spread warnings of a coming paradise for slackers.

Then again, the new work structure's proponents say it's helping Best Buy overcome challenges. And thanks to early successes, some of the program's harshest critics have become true believers. With gross margins on electronics under pressure, and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT ) and Target Corp. (TGT ) shouldering into Best Buy territory, the company has been moving into services, including its Geek Squad and "customer centricity" program in which salespeople act as technology counselors. But Best Buy was afflicted by stress, burnout, and high turnover. The hope was that ROWE, by freeing employees to make their own work-life decisions, could boost morale and productivity and keep the service initiative on track.

It seems to be working. Since the program's implementation, average voluntary turnover has fallen drastically, CultureRx says. Meanwhile, Best Buy notes that productivity is up an average 35% in departments that have switched to ROWE. Employee engagement, which measures employee satisfaction and is often a barometer for retention, is way up too, according to the Gallup Organization, which audits corporate cultures.

ROWE may also help the company pay for the customer centricity campaign. The endeavor is hugely expensive because it involves tailoring stores to local markets and training employees to turn customer feedback into new business ideas. By letting people work off-campus, Best Buy figures it can reduce the need for corporate office space, perhaps rent out the empty cubicles to other companies, and plow the millions of dollars in savings into its services initiative.

Phyllis Moen, a University of Minnesota sociology professor who researches work-life issues, is studying the Best Buy experiment in a project sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. She says most companies are stuck in the 1930s when it comes to employees' and managers' relationships to time and work. "Our whole notion of paid work was developed within an assembly line culture," Moen says. "Showing up was work. Best Buy is recognizing that sitting in a chair is no longer working."...

businessweek.com

businesspundit.com

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From: Neil H12/15/2009 11:30:11 AM
   of 980
 
Best Buy Earnings: Shares Slump Despite Bottom-Line Beat

By Matt Phillips
Profit margin concerns have shares of Best Buy down 6.9%, despite the bottom-line beat delivered by the electronics retailer.

One thing that seems to have gotten the attention of investors is the company’s note that “improved revenue outlook for the fiscal fourth quarter will primarily be driven by categories in the domestic segment with lower gross profit rates such as notebook computers and entry price-point televisions across all screen sizes. As a result, the company anticipates a lower fiscal fourth quarter gross profit rate than previously expected.” Translation?: Customers seem to be trading down and buying lower price items.

J.P. Morgan analysts note that “this fuels concerns on the commoditization of the product cycle and that the bankruptcy of [Circuit City] is not relieving the competitive environment with Walmart and Amazon continuing to push into the space.” In short, Wall Street was hoping that the demise of Circuit City would lead to not only fatter sales but also juicier profits. From the look of it, that doesn’t seem like it’ll happen in the fourth quarter.

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